U.S. President Joe Biden was in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, October 18th, to reiterate his country’s support for Israel. However, shockingly, Jordan—a close American ally—cancelled the American president’s visit following the news of a bombing of a hospital in Gaza, without Jordanian authorities awaiting verification that the Palestinian version of events was accurate, reflecting the weakened U.S. position in the region.
“I want you to know you’re not alone. We will continue to have Israel’s back as you work to defend your people,” Joe Biden said during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The president’s visit comes at a time when Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, the ruling force in Gaza, have been at war with each other for more than a week, following the massacre of Israeli citizens by the Palestinian organisation.
Roughly 3,500 Palestinians have died in Gaza, and more than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, mostly civilians who were slain in Hamas’ attack on October 7th. Jihadist groups have been launching rockets aimed at Israeli territories ever since, and it seems that one of these misfired rockets hit the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday evening.
The tragedy coincided with the visit of Joe Biden, who told Netanyahu: “Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.” Biden, who urged the Israeli prime minister to keep pursuing peace, was also intending to visit Israel’s neighbour, Jordan, in a bid to restore calm in the region, as the conflict shows signs of escalating. However, meetings with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas—leader of Hamas’ political rival, Fatah of the West Bank—were called off after the hospital explosion. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi blamed Israel for pushing the region to “the brink of the abyss.”
Both Jordan and Egypt have harshly criticised the U.S. for proposing that a safe corridor to Egypt be established for Palestinians fleeing Gaza. Jordan’s King Abdullah warned that any suggestion of the two countries taking in fleeing Gazans was a “red line”, and the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza “has to be dealt with inside Gaza and the West Bank.” The American suggestion has been met with fury in the Arab world, where media outlets have said that it serves Israel’s interest to de-populate the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and even to re-occupy it. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi said on Wednesday that Egyptians in their millions would reject the forced displacement of Palestinians into Sinai, adding that any such move would turn the Egyptian peninsula into a base for attacks against Israel.
The rebuke by Middle Eastern nations is another sign of the United States’ deteriorating influence in the region, after Saudi Arabia made clear it is intending to halt the process of normalising its ties with the United States and Israel as a direct result of Hamas’s massacre in Israel and Israel’s retaliatory attack on Gaza.
The impact of the war is expanding beyond the Middle East, and has made its way onto the global political arena. Russia criticised the United States for vetoing a UN Security Council resolution on Wednesday that would have called for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid access to the Gaza Strip. Washington traditionally shields its ally Israel from any Security Council action, and U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that diplomacy has to be given a chance. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia called the veto “hypocrisy and the double standards of our American colleagues,” referring to previous instances when the U.S. criticised Russia for vetoing resolutions on Ukraine. China said on Thursday it was “deeply disappointed” by the decision.
Russia and China are exploiting the situation in the Middle East. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met on Wednesday in Beijing on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Initiative forum, calling for close foreign policy coordination. The two leaders have met 41 times in the past decade, three times since the start of the war in Ukraine.
“Russia is a safe neighbour that is friendly, that is a source of cheap raw materials, that’s a support for Chinese initiatives on the global stage and that’s also a source of military technologies. For Russia, China is its economic lifeline in its brutal repression against Ukraine. It’s the major market for Russian commodities, it’s a country that provides its currency and payment system to settle Russia’s trade with the outside world,” Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told AP.
Both powers have either taken a neutral stance on the renewed conflict in the Middle East, or seem to have sided with the Palestinians. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi condemned Israel’s actions for going “beyond the scope of self-defence” and urged Israel to cease its “collective punishment of the people of Gaza”. Beijing’s mouthpiece publication, English-language Global Times, quoted an expert who said Washington is “fuelling the already tense situation by sending warships and unilaterally condemning Hamas, rather than ask Israel to stop bombardment in the Gaza Strip.”
As The Jerusalem Post points out, this rhetoric “is part of a wider global trend by Russia and China to challenge the West, and Israel may be affected by Beijing and Moscow’s next moves.” Both countries have a warm relationship with Israel’s greatest enemy, Iran, which militarily supports both Hamas and Hezbollah, the Lebanese group that could open a second front against Israel.
“Without its deepening partnership with Russia and China, Iran would be a far less potent actor,” writes Frederick Kempe, president of the Atlantic Council think tank, highlighting that Putin and Xi spoke in March of their intention to replace the fraying global system of rules and institutions.
To make matters worse for the U.S., Beijing even brokered a peace deal this year between two other foes, Shi’ite Muslim-majority Iran and Sunni kingdom Saudi Arabia. The hostilities and chaos in a region where the United States has many economic interests would be welcomed by China and Russia.
“The strategic and political point is that the return of war against Israel isn’t an isolated event. It’s the latest instalment in the unravelling of global order as American political will and military primacy are called into question,” The Wall Street Journal recently wrote in an editorial. The paper emphasised that “the U.S. and its allies now face two regional wars provoked by rogue states that are increasingly aligned,” and “China, which is supporting both Russia and Iran, may choose to exploit this moment of perceived US weakness in the Pacific, with a specific danger to Taiwan.”
A report by the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the U.S.—published last week—highlighted the need for Washington to prepare to deter and defeat multiple adversaries such as China, Iran, North Korea and Russia simultaneously in the period from 2027 to 2035.
For now, both the White House and the Pentagon have stressed that the United States is able to support its allies, Ukraine and Israel, on both fronts. For many nations in Europe, however, “in addition to straining regional relationships and diverting attention from Ukraine, an escalation of the war could also cause an energy crisis, potentially crippling the Middle Eastern alternatives to Russian oil and gas,” assesses The Wall Street Journal.
